The Breaking Point Part 55

Ba.s.sett read on:

Jean Melis called and sworn.

Q. "Your name?"

A. "Jean Melis."

Q. "Have you an American residence, Mr. Melis?"

A. "Only where I am employed. I am now living at the Clark ranch."

Q. "What is your business?"

A. "I am Mr. Clark's valet."

Q. "It was you who found Mr. Clark's revolver?"

A. "Yes."

Q. "Tell about how and where you found it."

A. "I made a search early in the evening. I will not hide from you that I meant to conceal it if I discovered it. A man who is drunk is not guilty of what he does. I did not find it. I went back that night, when the people had gone, and found it beneath the carved woodbox, by the fireplace. I did not know that the sheriff had placed a man outside the window."

"Get that, too," Ba.s.sett said, putting down the paper. "The Frenchman was fond of you, and he was doing his blundering best. But the sheriff expected you back and had had the place watched, so they caught him. But that's not the point. A billiard room is a hard place to hide things in.

I take it yours was like the average."

d.i.c.k nodded.

"All right. This poor b.o.o.b of a valet made a search and didn't find it.

Later he found it. Why did he search? Wasn't it the likely thing that you'd carried it away with you? Do you suppose for a moment that with Donaldson and the woman in the room you hid it there, and then went back and stood behind the roulette table, leaning on it with both hands, and staring? Not at all. Listen to this:

Q. "You recognize this revolver as the one you found?"

A. "Yes."

Q. "You are familiar with it?"

A. "Yes. It is Mr. Clark's."

Q. "You made the second search because you had not examined the woodbox earlier?"

A. "No. I had examined the woodbox. I had a theory that--"

Q. "The Jury cannot listen to any theories. This is an inquiry into facts."

"I'm going to find Melis," the reporter said thoughtfully, as he folded up the papers. "The fact is, I mailed an advertis.e.m.e.nt to the New York papers to-day. I want to get that theory of his. It's the servants in the house who know what is going on. I've got an idea that he'd stumbled onto something. He'd searched for the revolver, and it wasn't there.

He went back and it was. All that conflicting evidence, and against it, what? That you'd run away!"

But he saw that d.i.c.k was very tired, and even a little indifferent.

He would be glad to know that his hands were clean, but against the intimation that Beverly Carlysle had known more than she had disclosed he presented a dogged front of opposition. After a time Ba.s.sett put the papers away and essayed more general conversation, and there he found himself met half way and more. He began to get d.i.c.k as a man, for the first time, and as a strong man. He watched his quiet, lined face, and surmised behind it depths of tenderness and gentleness. No wonder the little Wheeler girl had worshipped him.

It was settled that d.i.c.k was to spend the night there, and such plans as he had Ba.s.sett left until morning. But while he was unfolding the bed-lounge on which d.i.c.k was to sleep, d.i.c.k opened a line of discussion that cost the reporter an hour or two's sleep before he could suppress his irritation.

"I must have caused you considerable outlay, one way and another," he said. "I want to defray that, Ba.s.sett, as soon as I've figured out some way to get at my bank account."

Ba.s.sett jerked out a pillow and thumped it.

"Forget it." Then he grinned. "You can fix that when you get your estate, old man. Buy a newspaper and let me run it!"

He bent over the davenport and put the pillow in place. "All you'll have to do is to establish your ident.i.ty. The inst.i.tutions that got it had to give bond. I hope you're not too long for this bed."

But he looked up at d.i.c.k's silence, to see him looking at him with a faint air of amus.e.m.e.nt over his pipe.

"They're going to keep the money, Ba.s.sett."

Ba.s.sett straightened and stared at him.

"Don't be a d.a.m.ned fool," he protested. "It's your money. Don't tell me you're going to give it to suffering humanity. That sort of drivel makes me sick. Take it, give it away if you like, but for G.o.d's sake don't shirk your job."

d.i.c.k got up and took a turn or two around the room. Then, after an old habit, he went to the window and stood looking out, but seeing nothing.

"It's not that, Ba.s.sett. I'm afraid of the accursed thing. I might talk a lot of rot about wanting to work with my hands. I wouldn't if I didn't have to, any more than the next fellow. I might fool myself, too, with thinking I could work better without any money worries. But I've got to remember this. It took work to make a man of me before, and it will take work to keep me going the way I intend to go, if I get my freedom."

Sometime during the night Ba.s.sett saw that the light was still burning by the davenport, and went in. d.i.c.k was asleep with a volume of Whitman open on his chest, and Ba.s.sett saw what he had been reading.

"You broken resolutions, you racking angers, you short-lived ennuis; Ah, think not you shall finally triumph, my real self has yet to come forth.

It shall march forth over-mastering, till all lie beneath me, It shall stand up, the soldier of unquestioned victory."

Ba.s.sett took the book away and stood rereading the paragraph. For the first time he sensed the struggle going on at that time behind d.i.c.k's quiet face, and he wondered. Unquestioned victory, eh? That was a pretty large order.

XL

Leslie Ward had found the autumn extremely tedious. His old pa.s.sion for Nina now and then flamed up in him, but her occasional coquetries no longer deceived him. They had their source only in her vanity. She exacted his embraces only as tribute to her own charm, her youth, her fresh young body.

And Nina out of her setting of gaiety, of a thumping piano, of chattering, giggling crowds, of dancing and bridge and theater boxes, was a queen dethroned. She did not read or think. She spent the leisure of her mourning period in long hours before her mirror fussing with her hair, in tr.i.m.m.i.n.g and retr.i.m.m.i.n.g hats, or in the fastidious care of her hands and body.

He was ashamed sometimes of his pitilessly clear a.n.a.lysis of her. She was not discontented, save at the enforced somberness of their lives.

She had found in marriage what she wanted; a good house, daintily served; a man to respond to her attractions as a woman, and to provide for her needs as a wife; dignity and an established place in the world; liberty and privilege.

But she was restless. She chafed at the quiet evenings they spent at home, and resented the reading in which he took refuge from her uneasy fidgeting.

"For Heaven's sake, Nina, sit down and read or sew, or do something.

You've been at that window a dozen times."

"I'm not bothering you. Go on and read."